The Public Domain: What does it look like?

I’m reading The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle and just finished Chapter 2 (Thomas Jefferson Writes a Letter).

It’s hard to mentally envision the “public domain” because, while we may think about intellectual property itself, we tend not to conceptualize its opposite, the “outside” of intellectual property. The public domain, Boyle says, is “not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by [intellectual] property law” (p. 40-41). The public domain is, rather, the vast majority of our culture. (Language itself, for instance, is part of the public domain. You don’t have to buy “English, Professional Edition”; it’s just there for you to use as you wish.)

The whole justification for the government granting copyrights and patents – which are, in effect, monopolies – is to provide a form of “protection” in order to encourage authors and inventors to put forth the time, effort and expense to create new works, and then to receive reasonable recognition and reward in return. But, in summarizing Jefferson’s warning about this protection, such monopolies “should be tightly limited in time and should not last a day longer than necessary to encourage the innovation in the first place.” (p. 21) In other words, some protection may be useful, but it should be as temporary and limited as possible.

This has provided me a metaphorical image. I think the public domain is like a coral reef. The vast, beautiful majority is comprised of long-dead coral animals. On the edges, here and there at any given time, are living coral polyps. The live a little while and then die, their calcified remains adding incrementally to the overall coral reef. The living coral polyps need some protection to do their job. But their lives are temporary. If their lives were permanent, the reef wouldn’t grow. And the collective result of their temporary “production” is the giant, diverse coral reef for others to use and enjoy (ignoring, of course, the tragic ecological threat posed to real coral in the real world).

This is not a perfect metaphor for lots of reasons. But it’s helped me construct a mental image for the public domain: vast, beautiful, diverse. And, to the extent that intellectual property is justified and useful (which is an argument in its own right), it should be limited and temporary in order to enrich our shared public domain as soon as possible.

This is one reason Creative Commons make so much sense. Enabling individual creators to determine for themselves the limits of their copyright is a much more nuanced and efficient way of applying “just the right amount” of protection for each creator’s work. The government’s current one-size-fits-all system is both heavy and ham-handed by comparison. In order to protect the very few creations that might (another argument) warrant extensive protection, it “overprotects” all creative works, and, in so doing, squanders the dynamic potential of our public domain -- the “basis for our art, our science and our self-understanding... the raw material from which we make new inventions and create new cultural worlds.” (p. 39)

The Public Domain: Why Intellectual Property?

I’m reading The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle (pub. date: December, 2008!). I’ve long struggled with the basic dilemma of intellectual property. (I’ll focus on copyright, though similar arguments apply to patents and trademarks.) On one hand, it makes sense that an author, artist, musician, photographer, etc. ought to get credit and maybe make money from their creative output. On the other hand, as individuals and as society, we benefit from the sharing of our collective culture. The dilemma, Boyle explains in Chapter 1, is in large part due to the excessive and strict terms of copyright, which is granted for “life plus seventy years, or ninety-five years for corporate ‘works for hire’”. Boyle’s delicious metaphor explains that:

... in the Library of Congress’s vast, wonderful pudding of songs and pictures and films and books and magazines and newspapers, there is perhaps a handful of raisins’ worth of works that anyone is making any money from, and the vast majority of those come from the last ten years. If one goes back twenty years, perhaps a raisin. Fifty years? A slight raisiny aroma. We restrict access to the whole pudding in order to give the owners of the raisin slivers their due. But this pudding is almost all of twentieth-century culture, and we are restricting access to it when almost of all of it could be available. (p. 12)

I’m reminded of an ethical case study posed back in Library School: You’re an academic librarian, and a faculty member comes to you at the end of Winter term, wanting to take home a rarely used reference book over the break. What do you do? The teacher, Kris Subramanyam, was incredibly meticulous and precise in all his doings. So, I assumed that the “right” answer (i.e., the one I thought Dr. Subramanyam wanted to hear) was to hold firm to the rule that reference books don’t circulate, and tell the faculty member in effect, “tough shit, you can’t take it home”. I was both surprised and challenged to hear Dr. Subramanyam discuss the subtleties of the situation... that since it was a rarely used book, and few people would be around during the school break, it would be reasonable to allow the faculty member to take the book home. The overarching purpose is to help patrons get the information they seek; rules can serve that purpose, but they shouldn’t get in the way of it. This opened my eyes to realize that the best librarians distinguished themselves not by being best at following arcane rules of librarianship, but by exercising mature judgment (wisdom) in helping to meet the information needs of the people they served.

And so it is with copyright. Clinging blindly to the rules ensures that none of us can fully enjoy the vast pudding of 20th century creative output, even if the copyright holders have no objection or cannot be found. But our culture would be better served by a more subtle, wiser and user-centered approach to managing our cultural treasure trove. This is not just a trivial matter of making voiceovers for old movies. I believe it speaks to the intellectual, creative and cultural environment that we must develop in order to successfully confront the political and ecological crises that face us. But that’s another story.

Preface to the next (and hopefully future) post(s)

I’ve been wanting to blog more, but haven’t yet gotten into the habit (mindset, paradigm). Part of it is typical habituation, like getting started on eating differently or exercising. Part of it is focus. I have lots I want to say, but am unsure of what to grab onto and write about. And this disconnect feels poignant as I read some of the books (and articles, blog posts, etc.) that have been exciting me so much. So, what I’ve been thinking of doing, which will address all of these concerns, is to blog about each book chapter when I’m reading a book.

I’ve read some terrific books lately. Books which have excited me (to a degree similar to how Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society radically and profoundly woke me up in 1977). And as I read these books, I highlight passages and think about how these ideas fit into my own ever-emerging paradigm.... And then they’re gone. The two most exciting books I’ve read lately (twice, and still have more to get out of them) are:

· Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

· Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger

And, currently, I’ve just begin another book about intellectual property called The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle, which is hot off the presses (publication date: December 8, 2008!). I’ve finished the preface and first chapter and stopped. I’m anxious to continue (and admit to skimming ahead), but the practice I want to try – hopefully repeatedly, but at least once – is to pause after the chapter and blog about it. I was thinking about this as I was reading it, and I noticed that my attention was focused in a different way. My highlighting and annotation was more purposeful. I already know what I want to write about. So, here we go...

The Tools, they are a-changing

I’ve been reading The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger. I’d heard of it before, but decided to take a closer look when it was recommended by Alex Hillman of IndyHall. It’s an outgrowth of the website of the same name, with its 95 Theses of the new paradigm heralded by the web. Although it’s focused on the implications of the web for business, its dominant theme is really all about how the web enables authentic voices and meaningful connections.

Its biggest drawback is that it was published way, way back in the year 2000 – eons ago in Internet time. But, as I read it, it still seemed fresh and interesting, and didn’t seem out of date, until we “... take a tour of the various conversational modalities the Net offers”: e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups, chat and web pages”. Let’s call these “Group A”; they are all great and unprecedentedly important tools which have dramatically empowered people by liberating their voices and making possible fluid, dynamic and serendipitous human connections.

But what feels dramatically and profoundly missing, what hadn’t been invented (or at least weren’t popularized) back in those olden days, are blogs, podcasts, videoblogs, Twitter, social bookmarks, YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, Craig’s List, much of what passes for “social networking” and much, much more. These are “Group B”.

The absence of Group B tools in the book struck me harder than I would have expected. Group A tools are not out-of-date clunkers; they are all mainstays of the cyberworld. And in retrospect, it certainly seems like Group B represents a natural progression and evolution of empowering Group A communication tools. But on the other hand, something about Group B feels deeply and profoundly different.

So, what’s different about them? All I come up with at the moment is that, when you speak through the tools in Group A (except for “web pages”), you have some degree of sense and control over who the audience is. Sure, it’s likely you don’t know all the readers in your mailing lists or newsgroups (and not knowing much or most of the audience is a critical part of their value). But, you likely have some sense of who the audiences are, because each mailing list, newsgroup or chat channel has some sort of name, identity, purpose. And you have some control over who hears your message, at least to the extent of being able to quit one mailing list or join another.

But Group B tools enjoy an audience of the whole world. Put out a blog post (like this one), or a Flickr pic or even a Craig’s List listing, and anyone can see it, link to it, love it, hate it. These newer tools carry voices anywhere, everywhere. Sure, groups of audience do emerge (a Twitterer has a certain number of followers; a podcast has a certain group of RSS subscribers). But these “groups” form even more dynamically, organically and unpredictably than the groups who subscribe to a mailing list or newsgroup.

Relatively speaking, a newsgroup is a silo. A blog is an open door.

But I don’t think this quite captures it. What am I missing? What do you think?

Using Social Networks for Social Change: a Slideshow by Ivan Boothe

Ivan Boothe has put together a very nicely done slideshow (with voiceover) on using social networks for social change. In this very young field, Ivan is a veteran. He co-founded the Genocide Intervention Network, which has used social networks very successfully to engage members. He is currently the Creative Director of Rootwork, as well as a co-organizer (with yours truly) of Philly NetSquared. If you've considered (or even tried) to use social networks to advance social change causes, this presentation will provide some very helpful insights and tips.

Using Social Networks for Social Change: Facebook, MySpace and More

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: fundraising advocacy)

About "Civic Capital"

I've been interested in social capital for many years (though I didn't have a name for it before reading Robert Putnam's groundbreaking book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.)

But I'd never heard the phrase civic capital before hearing it used to describe the effect of Barack Obama's successful "netroots" campaign. The On the Media interview below with Marshall Ganz describes how the Obama campaign helped to develop civic capital among its volunteers:



It talks about how, at "Camp Obama", volunteers were trained to articulate their own personal narratives, because it's "from their own stories that they're most effectively going to be able to engage others." Ganz goes on:

... a whole tier of volunteer leadership were cut into the action ...there was a level of empowerment, of volunteer leadership at the local level, that is a theme that's run all through this campaign. And that's why you see the responsibility, the enthusiasm, the creativity. And that's why when the campaign is over, as it is now, this isn't going to go away.

The term civic capital is new to me. (And I'm not the only one. Interestingly, there's no Wikipedia entry [yet] for civic capital, though the Wikipedia article for social capital was started way back in 2002!). So, it seems to me that civic capital is a form of social capital -- one that is self-consciously focussed on the improvement of the community or society of which its members are a part. It certainly wasn't invented by the Obama campaign. (A quick Google search cites the term used a number of years ago; and -- even without the term itself -- the reality of it no doubt goes back as far as civil society.) But the Obama campaign exposed and exploited it. And, to the question of whether we can use civic capital to help transform our society into one that is more just, green and peaceful, there's an obvious answer: Yes we can.

Obama's plans for information and communication technology

If you haven’t seen it already, Barack Obama describes specific plans for change on his slick website, change.gov. I find the Technology Agenda page particularly interesting and exciting.

Of course, just saying these things doesn’t make them happen. But I’ve never seen a politician articulate so clearly, unambiguously and (seemingly) sincerely information and communication policy intentions that are so close to my heart.

Describing the problem, the very first sentence reads, “We need to connect citizens with each other to engage them more fully and directly in solving the problems that face us.” Connect citizens with each other. This is not the worn out platitude of “let’s get valuable input from the people”— a one-way process where all the real control lies with the recipient of all that valuable input. Connecting people with each other (actually, “one another” would be more grammatically precise) bespeaks a trust in people that harkens both to Jefferson and to Web 2.0.

Here are some of the bullets from his plan (with quoted excerpts from the text) that I find most exciting:

• Protect the openness of the Internet. “... strongly supports the principle of network neutrality”.

• Encourage diversity in media ownership. “... encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.”

• Protect Our Children While Preserving the First Amendment. “Obama values our First Amendment freedoms and our right to artistic expression and does not view regulation as the answer to these concerns.”

• Safeguard our Right to Privacy. “... harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of personal privacy.”

• Open Up Government to its Citizens. “The Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history.... An Obama presidency will use cutting-edge technologies to reverse this dynamic, creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America's citizens.”

• Bring Government into the 21st Century. “Obama and Biden believe in the American people and in their intelligence, expertise, and ability and willingness to give and to give back to make government work better.” and “... will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO)”.

• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband. “As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access.”

Exciting stuff. Exciting times. Exciting opportunities.